Ever find yourself talking with someone about TV shows? If so, I bet you’ve been told about some great that new show that your buddy knows you’d just love. But in this day of Tivos and DVRs, who the heck knows what comes on when – or even what channel! Well, this app can help out with that situation, and provide a lot more to boot.

The app is i.TV – which makes you instantly think it’s a TV Guide for your iPhone. Well, you’d be right. At least, that’s a big part of it. To begin with, you can let the program determine your location – or enter your zipcode to find your local Television options. It’s not limited to just the ‘over the air’ stuff, it can get the appropriate channels and listings for your area for Cable and Satellite providers as well. Once you download those big lists of channels – you run into the same problem you have on your Tivo or DVR – How to get rid of all those channels you don’t care about?

Well, this little app has a bevy of customization features – you can hide channels you’re not interested in, so you can trim down that long list to stations that really matter. From there, that might not help locate that killer show your friend was talking about, so once the listing information has downloaded (which it does automatically), you can search the guide – either what’s on now, what’s on today, or all the info it has. Okay, so that’s handy – you’re interested now. But heck, that’s just the beginning. Read on for more…

Once you click on a show, it’ll give you more information, including the synopsis, allow you to read or see ratings from other users – and for some, even link to a preview to watch a trailer or teaser. If you want, you can mark a show as your favorite, then see all those shows in another screen – where you can easily check them out and see what episodes are coming up when and on what channel.

A bit beyond it’s name – it also features theater and movie information, with showtimes, reviews, and links to trailer videos. Just like with the channels, you can hide theaters so that your list will only show those you’ll actually go to.

All in all, this is a pretty handy little app – especially for the current price of Free. This is not some clunky app, it’s very well put together – and if you’re even vaguely drawn by it’s features – I suggest you run go grab it before someone comes to their senses and starts charging $.99 or more for it.

There are some issues with it in it’s current state. As you can imagine, it’s a bit heavy on rich content (pictures for the shows, movies, etc. As such, it can close down unexpectedly sometimes. I haven’t lost any of my settings or favorites when this happens, and you can just fire it right back up. The developer is aware, and future versions will hopefully knock out that problem.

All things considered – a highly suggested app to go get for yourself. I’ve included some screenshots below!

Comments

You should also install the Roku app, available for iOS and Android, because it makes setup a whole lot easier. Entering your Wi-Fi password on your TV is a down-right-right-right-down-down nightmare, and the apps let you type it in right from your phone; same goes for logging into all your various content services. The app isn’t a great replacement for general navigation on the Roku — you’re better off using the actual remote, which doesn’t make you constantly look down to ensure you’re hitting the right button — but it is great for jumping between channels, which you can see in a list on your phone rather than having to go back to the Roku’s homescreen and interrupt whatever you were watching.